Speaker Boehner, Where Are The Jobs?

January 20, 2011 5:03 pm ET —
Matt Finkelstein

For almost two years before
the midterm elections, Republican politicians blamed President Obama and the
Democratic majority for an avalanche of job losses that started under the Bush
administration. When employment stopped cratering shortly after the enactment of the Recovery Act, conservatives
attacked Democrats for not creating jobs swiftly enough, even as Republicans blocked efforts to boost
employment. Any legislative initiative whose primary goal was not job creation
was, Republicans said, an affront to
millions of Americans who were struggling.

Now that Speaker John Boehner
(R-OH) is calling the shots, though, Republican priorities seem to have shifted.
The new majority's first big push was the symbolic repeal of health care reform,
which — GOP talking points
notwithstanding — won't do anything to get
people back to work. Having scored an entirely meaningless win on the health
care front, Republicans are now moving on to
the all-important economic issue of...abortion.

Calling it a top priority of the
Republican agenda, House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday gave a top
designation to a bill introduced by New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith that would ban
the use of any federal funds from being used for abortions.

The
"No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," given the numerical designation H.R. 3 to emphasize its prominence,
would make permanent in existing law any language that bans abortion. [...]

"Our members feel very strongly about the sanctity of
human life. We listened to the American people. We made a commitment to the
American people under the Pledge to America and we're continuing to fulfill our
commitment," Boehner said.

Meanwhile, after months of GOP leaders dodging questions about how they would reduce spending, the
Republican Study Committee has outlined $2.5 trillion
in budget cuts that "would deliberately fire
thousands of civilian workers, force states to make sweeping job cuts, and lay off
thousands more who work in transportation and infrastructure." As Steve Benen comments, "if lawmakers were to get
together to plot how Congress could deliberately increase unemployment, their
plan would look an awful lot like this one."